In an envelope insertion machine for mass mailing, there is an envelope feeder on one end of the machine to sequentially release envelopes directly into an envelope staging area, and a gathering section on the other end where the enclosure material is released and gathered. If the enclosure material contains many documents, these documents must be separately released from different enclosure feeders. The released documents must also be collated into a stack and moved to the envelope staging area where the document stack is inserted into an envelope by an insertion engine. In some envelope insertion machines, however, the movement of the envelopes from the envelope feeder to the envelope staging area involves a right-angle turn. In those machines, although the envelopes can be fed at a high feeding rate and moved at a high speed after they are released, each envelope must be slowed down or momentarily stopped before it can make a drastic turn to enter into the envelope staging area.
Because of the requirement for the right-angle turn, the envelope feeder must also be slowed down to wait for the previously released envelope to move out of the feeding path. Thus, the right-angle turn movement reduces the feeder rate that is otherwise attainable by the envelope feeder. Consequently, the throughput of the envelope insertion machine is also substantially reduced. In a high-speed envelope insertion machine wherein the machine throughput is required to reach 18,000 insertions per hour, the reduced velocity of the envelopes due to the right-angle turn requirement causes a bottle-neck in the entire insertion system.
Therefore, it is advantageous and desirable to provide a method and a system for transporting the envelopes released from the envelope feeder to the envelope staging area so as to solve the above-described bottle-neck problem in an envelope insertion machine.